E-prescriptions get a $1M boost in Vermont
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By DANIEL BARLOW Vermont Press Bureau - Published: October 19, 2009
MONTPELIER — With a few clicks on the mouse, Dr. Anthony Williams sent a prescription for "Doug Allscripts" to the pharmacy.
Doug Allscripts is not a real person – but if he was, by the time he made it from his doctor's office to the pharmacy, his medications would be ready for him, prescribed electronically.
"It's a classic no-brainer," said Williams, who has a private medical practice in Berlin. "It helps the patients, it helps the doctors."
Doctors and pharmacists Friday praised the trend of e-prescribing – sending prescription notes via Internet to local pharmacies – as U.S. Sen. Patrick Leahy, D-Vt., traveled to Montpelier to announce a $1 million federal grant to expand the practice. The money from the U.S. Health Resources and Services Administration will help doctors and pharmacists buy the software necessary to join the program, which advocates say cuts medical costs, improves efficiencies and could even save lives.
The Vermont Information Technology Leaders, a Montpelier organization, will carry out the program in the state, giving doctors free access and training to Allscripts ePrescribe, a nationwide computer software used by tens of thousands of doctors.
Leahy, a senior member of the Senate Appropriations Committee, marveled at the growing reach of technology, noting that while having coffee at his Middlesex home in the morning, he read the Washington Post online, got memos from his staff and received new pictures of his grandchildren.
He said moving toward electronic health records – of which e-prescribing is a large part – is essential to President Obama's health care reform plans. There are incentives in place by the federal government, such as increased reimbursements, for doctors to move away from paper.
"Electronic medical records hold the promise for literally billions of dollars in health care savings," Leahy said. "This is a reform that can help every Vermonter."
Williams, who has been using e-prescriptions for six months, said the technology can reduce the chance of prescriptions being filled incorrectly and check to ensure that a medication prescribed by one doctor does not conflict with a medication prescribed by another.
The nonprofit Institute of Medicine has found that preventable medication errors result in 1.5 million injuries and 7,000 deaths each year. Of the 1,600 doctors in Vermont, only about 300 of them are using the technology now and about 5 percent of prescriptions are filled electronically.
"Going forward, the effects of this will be tremendous," said Rich Harvey, one of the owners of the Montpelier pharmacy.
Paul Harrington, the executive vice-president of the Vermont Medical Society, said many of the chain pharmacies have this technology in place, but the cost has been obstructive to bringing the locally-owned stores on-line.
"We want to see this spread across the whole state," he said.
Friday's press conference, held at the Montpelier Pharmacy on Main Street, wouldn't be complete without jokes about the notoriously horrendous handwriting of doctors.
"I can barely read my own handwriting," said Dr. David Cochran, the president and CEO of VITL. "I can only imagine that it is a challenge for the pharmacist to read it as well."
Quipped Leahy in the same vein, "My mother, God bless her soul, told me I could have been a doctor, my handwriting is so terrible."
daniel.barlow@rutland herald.com.
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